


you're the first one

by escherzo



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Canon Compliant, Columbus Blue Jackets, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-10-28 23:03:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10841301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escherzo/pseuds/escherzo
Summary: “I forgot it wasn’t just guitar you needed your right hand for,” Boone says, still trying to hide that he’s laughing. It’s really not helping Ryan’s mood, or actually succeeding at being hidden. He makes a fairly unsubtle hand gesture.





	you're the first one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [johannas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/johannas/gifts).



> Coos, I hope this fulfills your exchange fic dreams!! 
> 
> Title from "You're My Best Friend" by Queen

Ryan is not in his body.

Somewhere about a foot below him and a bit to the left, his fingers close over the cast on his right hand. It’s heavy, scratchy, and rubbing it makes his hand tingle. It’s oddly fascinating. The little fibers of the edge of the cast are sticking up every which-way, and he smooths them down, then the other way, then down again, then goes back to rubbing over the rest of the cast. He can only sort of feel the whole thing; someone else is probably piloting his body, and he’s just an observer at the moment. It’s nice. Nothing hurts at all.

“Man,” a voice says, off to his right. “I’d forgotten how much anesthesia fucks you up.”

It sounds sort of familiar. Ryan can’t place it, at the moment, and if he could drop down a foot and back into his body he might remember how turning his head works, but at the moment it seems like a lot of work. The fuzzy bits of cast are a much higher priority. There’s a word for this feeling, and at some point he knew it, but again. Too much work.

“I feel fine,” he says, though he’s still trying to figure out how piloting the body works, and he stares at his bare hand, flexing and unflexing the fingers experimentally.

“You've been petting your cast for five minutes.” Boone comes into his field of vision, crouching down beside him on the couch, and oh, right, that’s whose voice that was. He looks nice. Fluffy, like the edges of the cast.

This is a considerable improvement over the last time he had surgery, he means to point out to Boone, and will once he remembers how to vocalize the thought. Last time he had a cup of grape juice next to him on his bed when Boone handed him a plate of food and he set his phone down directly into the cup.

Ten seconds into “oh, that’s a pretty purple glow” he realized _why_ there was a purple glow, and, well. The rest, and the phone, was history.

No cast to pet last time. Maybe that was the problem.

“Murrs?”

“Oh,” Ryan says, realizing he’s been silent for awhile. “I’m listening. I was just thinking about the phone I lost to the juice.”

“Go back to sleep,” Boone says, and pulls the blanket pooled at Ryan’s waist back over him. “I won’t let you kill your phone this time, don’t worry.”

Ryan means to say something—that his phone isn’t next to him, maybe—but he gets distracted by the texture of the blanket, and then he fades back out into sleep before he can get that far.

*

One blink, and the morning sun is streaming in through the window. There’s a cup of water and a bottle of painkillers on the coffee table, and the Styrofoam cup has a little “:(” scratched into it with a fingernail, the eyes curving to the right.

They’re horsepill painkillers, but it’s not Ryan’s first rodeo, no pun intended. He swallows them down without the help of the water, and only drinks it to let Boone know he’s taken the pills, so he won’t worry. He’s gotten even more protective than usual since he’s taken the A. Ryan can’t say he minds.

He misses the last home game that day before the weekend New York swing; the lingering effects of the anesthesia and the painkillers are an exhausting combination, but when he wakes in the middle of the night, there’s a fresh cup of water and a sandwich wrapped in plastic waiting for him.

He can’t help but smile, looking at them.

*

A broken hand rules out guitar, banjo, his rudimentary attempts as of late at learning harmonica, and video games, and he’s up to date on most of the shows he’s been following. Boone’s stack of injury puzzles would kind of be a pain in the ass to do one-handed, too.

This is… not going to be the most fun recovery he has ever had.

What is different this time, as he learns about five minutes after he drags himself along with Boone to the practice rink on Friday so the trainers can give him the usual lecture about minimizing loss of muscle mass during recovery, is that, well.

This time he actually has friends.

*

Well. Back up. He wasn’t a friendless hermit last time he was injured long-term or anything. For the record. But he _was_ a rookie who hadn’t spent a ton of time with the guys, and was then gone for nearly a whole year, and in that year a couple of the teammates he was closer with got traded, so maybe he wasn’t the most social person in the world.

This time he’s barely in the door before he gets mobbed.

“We brought some stuff for you,” Bill says merrily, exchanging a look with Wenny, and Wenny nods. They both look very pleased with themselves.

“I have to meet with the trainers,” Ryan says. “But you can give me it after? Or now, if you have it now, I guess.”

“After,” Wenny says, and pats him on the shoulder. “Come watch practice when you’re done, Bill has a new move he wants to show off.”

“It’s good.”

“It’s _very_ good.”

Sometimes, Ryan thinks, looking between the two of them, they seem like they’re about five seconds from being able to speak in perfect unison.

“I’ll look,” he promises, and gets two very careful one-armed hugs before being sent on his way.

*

For once, the trainers don’t just want him to make sure he’s eating enough protein and doing the right stretches for rehab. Not that he could do many stretches to help along a broken hand.

“One week of the narcotics and then onto ibuprofen, and we’re going to try and get you skating at that point,” one of the doctors tells him, and his eyebrows go up involuntarily. A month recovery means he’s not going to be playing until mid-April, so—

“Suggestion from Torts,” is the explanation he gets. “As long as you’re careful, there’s no reason you can’t, and it’ll make the transition back to playing easier.”

He’s not going to complain. If nothing else, it’ll be a good distraction from having all of his usual hobbies taken away.

*

Bill’s new move, once Ryan gets back to the Ice Haus stands to see it and whistles to signal he’s around, is a pretty slick one. Bob absolutely lets the goal in on purpose, but a good Forsberg is a good Forsberg, and the dangles beforehand aren’t half bad either.

Wenny tackling him to the ice in a celebratory hug is a bit much, but, well. It’s Bill and Wenny. Everyone is used to that.

*

They aren’t the only ones with something for him, either.

Savy has something in a casserole dish—“no, my wife didn’t make it, I did. Well. She helped. We sampled it and it’s good, just heat it up when you get home.” Whether the pink in his cheeks is from the exertion of practice or from showing off that he’s learning how to cook new things is hard to say. Jonesy has a handful of movies and TV shows to watch, and apparently also “has something on the way, couple of my old teammates found it.”

Bill and Wenny have, well.

“… Bolibompa?” Ryan asks, squinting at the DVD case.

“It’s a Swedish kids’ show,” Bill informs him. “My little cousins are really into it.”

“We’re not going to let your Swedish get rusty while you’re out.”

Ryan is absolutely going to have narcotics-fueled nightmares about the guy in the crocodile—alligator?—suit, but it’s sweet, and he doesn’t have the heart to turn it down.

Boone shows up, freshly showered, just in time to rescue him from his attempts to follow where the conversation, which immediately turns into all Swedish, goes from there. He thinks he catches something else about kids’ shows, and at this rate, he’s going to be saddled with the Swedish dub of Sesame Street too, or maybe a couple of Disney movies.

“Don’t hog my roommate,” Boone says, in a manner that Ryan thinks is supposed to sound teasing but mostly just sounds grumpy. He’s not very good at sounding not-grumpy, even when he’s, like now, grinning and genial. It’s just his nature.

He herds Ryan away, after Ryan is borrowed for a few more one-armed hugs from the guys, and off to the car, Ryan awkwardly balancing a casserole dish in the palm of his good hand and also trying to hold a stack of DVDs in the crook of his arm.

“Anything good?” Boone asks, after actually buckling Ryan in for him, as though he has zero working hands instead of just one.

“A weird Swedish kids’ show with a guy in an alligator suit, a casserole Savy made, and, uh, let’s see. Space Jam, one of the old Batman movies, some movie about a river, and—oh, Jonesy thinks he’s funny again, Little House on the Prairie.”

“Did he rent that?”

“Probably.”

Ryan is absolutely going to watch Little House on the Prairie, because what the hell else is he going to do with his time, but he is never in a million years going to admit that to Jonesy, and will probably do so when Boone is out of the house, too.

(He read the series as a kid, and got really emotionally invested in Farmer Boy. He could pretend it’s because of all the elaborate descriptions of food he read during a time when he was going through a growth spurt and was therefore always hungry, but he also just really liked it, so sue him.)

*

Boone is gone in short order on the weekend New York trip, and Ryan is too exhausted by the narcotics to actually get out of bed for most of that. He watches rain spatter against his window, trees lining the boulevard swaying in the wind. The tornado siren goes off, at some point, eerie as always, but he doesn’t move. There’s nowhere to go in this apartment, really, on the fourth floor with no basement to get to. Dazed with the painkillers as he is, he hones in on the sounds of the sirens; they go off at so many points throughout the city, they sound like strange, discordant wind chimes, wails of a dozen different pitches.

Tornadoes don’t come through the city proper, anyway. Haven’t in a long time. Still, though—

“Not in Kansas anymore,” he mumbles to his pillow before rolling over and passing out again. Maybe he’ll dream of ruby slippers.

*

“Ryan,” a voice says through his haze. “Ryan!”

“Still in Kansas,” Ryan mumbles, voice coming out a hoarse croak. His tongue feels too big for his mouth.

“Ohio,” Boone corrects him, sitting in his armchair. He’s got a gash across his face, but he’s smiling gently, and he steps forward, tucking the loose strands of Ryan’s hair behind his ear as Ryan’s eyes flutter open. His bedside lamp is on, and it’s dark out, but it might be daytime still. It’s raining again.

“Hey,” Boone says, soft. “Come eat? I got delivery.”

“From where?” Ryan asks, face still half-buried in his pillow, his words indistinct.

“Layla’s. C’mon. Lamb vindaloo waiting for you.”

Boone extends a hand, and Ryan takes it, lost for a long moment in the feel of the roughness of his palms, the leathery calluses, how warm he is and how cold Ryan’s fingers feel by comparison. How strange it is to take Boone’s hand with his left, with his right still wedged awkwardly at his side in its bulky cast.

“Hey, earth to Murrs, up up.”

Last time he was injured, Boone was too, and couldn’t lift him. This time, it’s just him, and Boone pulls him up to sitting and then tugs his whole body forward until he can’t help but stand up, even though he stumbles on the first few steps before he rights himself properly. Given the glint in Boone’s eye, he was definitely thinking, at least for a moment, of bridal carrying Ryan out of bed and to the table.

It would have been embarrassing, but also kind of nice, if he’s honest with himself.

*

“Have you been in bed all weekend?” Boone asks around a mouthful of naan and rice. He has a smear of orange on his chin and Ryan resists the urge to lick his thumb and then wipe it away, like his mama used to do.

“The vicodin makes me tired,” Ryan says with a shrug. “I got up to eat and that was about it.”

“I leave you alone for five minutes,” Boone says, shaking his head, but there’s a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

After they eat, Boone herds him to the couch and puts in a DVD, wrapping them both up in the blankets in a heap nearby.

It’s Little House on the Prairie.

“I grew up in farm country too,” Boone says, and he’s trying to sound so serious, but Ryan knows exactly what he looks like when he’s about to laugh. He’s not subtle.

“Oh, just press play already.”

Boone thinks it’s a great joke, but he’s absolutely going to get emotionally invested in the first fifteen minutes, and they both know it.

(He does. His eyes get watery a few times, even, and he pretends like he’s yawning, as though he and Ryan haven’t cried on each other before more than once.)

*

“Jesus, you’re prickly today.”

Ryan’s been off the narcotics for a few days, and has been allowed to skate a grand total of once. Mostly he’s been camped out on the couch watching TV, and instead of just nodding when Boone asked him, “still not gone anywhere?” after he got back from a team meeting he ended up snapping “Where would I go?” It’s the kind of day where everything feels low-level irritating.

Boone looks at him, quiet and assessing, and then poorly disguises laughter with a cough.

“ _Oh_ ,” he says.

“What do you mean _oh_.”

“I forgot it wasn’t just guitar you needed your right hand for,” Boone says, still trying to hide that he’s laughing. It’s really not helping Ryan’s mood, or actually succeeding at being hidden. He makes a fairly unsubtle hand gesture.

… Oh. Right. _That_. That might be part of the mood issue.

*

Like, okay. Ryan hasn’t needed to get off every day to not vibrate out of his skin since he was fourteen, doesn’t even usually think about it that much, but it has been a week and a half, and after a while he does get a little... touchy, no pun intended. It’s not that he gets mad out of nowhere, more that anything that would be brushed off normally but is objectively annoying becomes harder to ignore.

So yeah, Boone’s probably not wrong there.

He gives it a go with his left hand as soon as Boone leaves for overnight in DC—lotion, a video he likes of two jock-type dudes messing around in a bed and teasing each other, and—nada. The angle is wrong, or his grip is, and he huffs out a frustrated breath, hand squeezing uncomfortably tight on his cock as he readjusts. It’s not _awful_ , but it’s not good, either, and if it does end up getting him off it’s going to take forever and make his shoulder hurt by the time he’s done.

Boone could probably pick up even if he had both hands in casts, from what Ryan’s heard girls say about his mouth. Ryan’s not quite that lucky.

Fuck.

*

Seth’s package arriving is a welcome distraction, no innuendo intended. It’s in an unremarkable brown cardboard box with a Nashville return address, a shop called “Corner Music,” and when he manages to find his scissors and open it up, he finds—a weird metal thing he can’t immediately identify, though it looks sort of familiar. The packing slip says “harmonica holder,” though, and _oh_. Some of Seth’s guys in Nashville saw a hands-free way to play harmonica and thought of him, which is really sweet of them honestly.

Ryan texts Seth a “thanks!!” and gets back two thumbs up emojis and a few musical notes. He has no idea if he can actually figure out how to use it, but—not like he’s short on time to figure that out.

*

Boone comes home with takeout to find Ryan on the living room floor, harmonica holder on, trying to work on perfecting the first couple of notes. The packaging is still strewn around next to him and he doesn’t sound—great, but he’s starting to get the hang of how to angle himself to keep the harmonica close enough to sound nice.

“Busy day?” Boone asks, settling down onto the floor next to him cross-legged and passing him a styrofoam container. It smells like dumplings, and it’s at that point he remembers he hasn’t actually eaten for a while now. They smell great.

“Just trying to figure out how this holder thing works,” Ryan says, taking it off. “You want to try it?”

“I’d be terrible at it,” Boone says. He’s distracted by rifling through the bag to find forks, and so doesn’t notice until it’s too late when Ryan puts it on him. “ _Terrible_ ,” he repeats, but he’s grinning, and terrible has now probably become a selling point, in a ‘be a goof’ sort of way. He scrunches up his face in thought and then gives the harmonica a blow.

Boone’s right. He’s terrible at it. It’s loud, and flat, and kind of sounds like that Vine of a pile of rubber chickens screaming in unison.

“Oh god, okay, okay,” Ryan says, waving a hand at him and trying to stifle hysterical laughter. “Ow.”

*

Halfway through dinner, Boone asks around a mouthful of fried rice, “How’re you holding up? Less cranky than yesterday?”

“I wasn’t _that_ cranky, was I?” Ryan frowns.

“Compared to your usual,” Boone clarifies, and takes another bite. He’s got pieces of rice stuck in his beard, which Ryan is absolutely not going to point out, for the sake of his own amusement.

“I’m alright.” He shrugs. “If I get too bad just tell me and I’ll go for a run or something.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Boone stops eating, eyebrows furrowed slightly, and stares down at his plate instead of looking at Ryan. He seems almost—shy, when he speaks. It’s not like him. Ryan has seen him vulnerable, upset, embarrassed, but not shy.

“I, uh.”

“… Yeah?”

“So you know if you ever need any help I’d help, right?”

“Of course I know.” And how could he not know? When the two of them were a pair of invalids stuck in this apartment, they helped each other with everything: changing bandaging, washing hair, cooking, passing the endless days of recovery. It was an awful time, but comforting, in a way, the world just their little bubble together. Ryan can’t think of why he’d be shy about helping again now.

“If you need, uh. A hand. I can help with that too. I know it’s gotta be rough.”

Ryan’s halfway through repeating ‘if you need a hand’ in his head when he gets it. Asking him if he’s still feeling prickly. _I can help with that too._

Jesus.

“You—seriously?”

Boone shrugs. He’s trying for confident and missing it, shoulders hunched a little, still not looking at Ryan.

“I didn’t mean seriously in a bad way,” Ryan rushes to clarify. “I’m just surprised.”

It’s not a hard decision, either. It’s been awhile, and Boone is both good-looking and, if the noises from his room when he hooks up are any indication, knows what he’s doing. And if buddy handjobs with a few teammates in juniors never got weird, there’s no real reason this should either.

“Okay,” he says, after a pause, and smiles a little. “But not right now. Finish your rice. Oh, and there’s some of it in your beard.”

It’s funny, but if they’re going to be getting down later, he’s got to have _some_ standards.

*

Ryan’s already in bed, halfway through a reply text to Bill--Alex wants a second opinion on a jacket he’s thinking of ordering--when Boone knocks. He stands in the doorway in sweatpants and a soft t-shirt, his hair a little mussed, like he’s been running his fingers through it, and he looks tired, but—good. He looks good. Ryan finishes the text and sets his phone down on the nightstand, smiling up at him.

“Still want to?” Boone’s voice is rough.

When Ryan nods, he makes his way across the room and settles in on the bed, already reaching out for Ryan’s waistband. No hesitation. Ryan’s stomach swoops, heat pooling in his gut, at the heat of Boone’s fingers on bare skin, and he lifts his hips to help Boone slide his sweatpants off. It really has been awhile; even just this little touch is dizzying, electric. Boone’s thumb strokes over the cut of his hipbone, up and down, to the line of his boxers but no further, not yet, and he shudders, trying to keep his eyes open to memorize the intent lines of Boone’s face, the heat in his eyes. It’s a lot.

“Do you want—I can turn the light off,” Boone offers, after a moment, and Ryan shakes his head. No way he could pretend it’s a girl touching him, even if he wanted to; Boone’s hands are big and rough, with little divots and scars, entirely his own.

He reaches down to cover Boone’s hand with his own and push it lower, hips shifting restlessly, and Boone takes the hint, fingers hooking in the waistband of his boxers and tugging them down far enough that Ryan’s cock, already hard, springs out. Boone opens his mouth like he’s about to tease and then stops himself, but the smirk on his face says enough-- _easy for it, huh_ , it seems to say. He wouldn’t be wrong.

“Please,” Ryan says, and his voice comes out so raw already.

Boone is as good with his hands as Ryan thought he’d be; his grip is firm, just the right side of too tight, and he strokes Ryan hard and fast, only stopping long enough to spit into his palm to ease the slide before getting right back to it. He’s done this before. That’s about the only thought Ryan can manage, biting his lip so hard it hurts to hold in desperate noises as he squirms and pushes up into Boone’s grip and comes all over his hand so fast it takes the wind out of him. He’s lost in it for a long, agonizingly good moment.

“Wow,” Boone says as Ryan comes back to himself. “Looked like you needed that.” God, Ryan made a mess of him.

“Do you want—“ Ryan looks down, can’t help it, and yeah, Boone’s hard too. His sweatpants don’t hide much.

“You really want to try your luck with your left hand?” Boone asks, grinning. His cheeks are flushed red, like he’s just come off a hard shift on the ice, and he looks terribly pleased with himself. “Thought you were having trouble with that.”

Okay, yeah, fine, he’s got a point there, but—it feels terribly rude to not return the favor. Ryan scowls.

“I’ll be fine,” Boone says, and sits back, moving to get up. Ryan almost blurts out, “You can stay,” but catches himself at the last moment—stay and do what? Have Ryan watch when he can’t help? There’s probably a line in all of this, and that probably crosses it, but as he watches Boone leave he can’t help but want.

“Get some sleep,” Boone says, and smiles as he closes the door.

*

So far as Ryan can tell, it’s no bigger a deal than it was with juniors teammates. Boone doesn’t mention it over breakfast past teasing Ryan, “You’re looking better this morning,” and their ride in to the rink is normal as ever, Boone humming along to the radio and tapping his palms on the steering wheel while Ryan watches the houses blur by. Maybe it really is going to be that easy.

He gets to skate on his own while everyone else is back in the rooms going over video, and he closes his eyes, losing himself in the scrape of his skates on the ice and the chill in the air as he makes lazy loops. Back, forth, a lap or two at full speed just to get his blood up.

“Thinks the ice is all for him,” he hears, and there’s Wenny, back from video, with Bill at his side as always. He shakes his head in mock disappointment.

“Rude!” Bill yells.

“Come join me then,” Ryan says, skating over. “Where’s Boone?”

“Jonesy stole him for a little bit,” Bill says, tucking a stray strand of hair back behind his ear. “I think they’re trying to figure out where we’re all going for lunch.”

It’s nice, this ragtag group of young guys they’ve got. He never has to figure out things like going out after games or team lunch. Team lunch is just a thing that happens to him now.

“Savy coming?”

“He and Fliggy are taking their kids to the zoo,” Wenny says. “Emma wants to go see the red panda again.”

Bill and Wenny get distracted by each other and into a long discussion in Swedish, which Ryan only catches bits of—something about the Pallas cat never coming out to see them when they go visit, and unless Ryan is entirely mistaken Wenny’s blaming Bill’s sunny disposition for scaring its grumpy self away. There’s a lot of jostling happening.

“You know I can’t catch most of that,” Ryan says, settling down to do a few stretches before he gets off the ice. This is probably because he’s not intended to; the conversation isn’t for him anymore.

“Come on,” Boone calls from the hallway. “We’re hungry.”

They end up at Montana Grill, too lazy to bother going further than right across the street, and anyway, Boone gets an inordinate amount of joy out of making dad jokes and the material inherent in “bison” alone gets him a long way. Ryan never has the heart to deny him that.

Plus, bison meatloaf sandwiches. Hard to turn down.

*

By the time they leave for home, Ryan’s laughed so hard his chest aches and he’s got bits of ketchup and French fry on his shirt from where Jonesy got too into gesturing—while holding a few ketchup-covered fries--to explain some bullshit Orpik had been up to in the away game Ryan missed. God, he can’t wait to be back. Signs for the playoffs are starting to crop up around town and even in late afternoon, it’s hot like summer, trees starting to bud even as the air is sweltering. It’s almost the postseason.

“Think you’ll be back in time?” Boone asks, seeing where he’s looking. He keeps his voice soft; it’s not something Ryan’s been trying to think about much, if he can help it.

“I hope so. I don’t know yet.”

They settle in together on the couch to watch a few more of Ryan’s movies, pressed close even though the A/C is just starting to cool off the apartment. The physical comfort is nice. Familiar. They did this a lot when they were both hurt.

“Hey,” Boone says, as the credits roll, shifting away enough that he can turn towards Ryan. “You wanna again?” He waggles his fingers and Ryan flushes.

“That is _not_ the right hand gesture,” Ryan points out, trying not to laugh. He thought this might be a one-off, or at the very least, that Boone wasn’t offering _every day_ , but—he’s not about to turn it down. “But yeah, okay.”

“I mean, I could try that, see if it’s your thing,” Boone offers, helping Ryan work down the waistband of his sweats and boxers. “I won’t judge.”

“It’s not my th—haah.” Boone doesn’t let Ryan finish and he doesn’t hesitate at all, just takes him in hand and starts stroking, working him to full hardness. It’s slower, this time, more methodical, Boone working to figure out what he likes. Ryan lets himself be noisy, this time, encouraging Boone on when he twists his wrist just right, lost in watching how intently Boone is watching him, how dark and full of heat his eyes are. He can’t push up into it as much as he wants, only able to brace on one arm, and maybe Boone likes that—he tries and Boone’s other hand comes down to pin his hips to the couch, just make him take what Boone is giving him.

“There you are,” Boone says, voice so low as Ryan curls his hand into a fist and squeezes his eyes shut, squirming in place to try and chase more of the feeling of Boone’s hand. “I got you.”

He works Ryan through it with slow, sure strokes as Ryan comes, lip caught between his teeth, so focused. All Ryan can do is pant to get his breath back and smile weakly, fizzing with good feeling.

The afterglow is interrupted a bit when Boone then wipes his hand on Ryan’s shirt and gets up off the couch.

“Hey!”

“Hey, it’s your come.” Boone shrugs, grinning like an asshole, but Ryan can’t muster up the energy to be actually cranky at him, considering.

“Could have at least gone for the clothes I wasn’t wearing.”

“That’s no fun.”

And with that Boone abruptly takes off for his bedroom and shuts the door, which, well. Ryan can’t very well reciprocate right now, so that’s to be expected.

*

It keeps happening. Not every day, but close to it, just part of the routine. He goes to practices, skates on his own, spends the afternoons with Boone in the apartment (at which point Boone gets him off) or out with the guys, and in the evenings when he’s gone out, Boone’s in his doorway, eyebrows raised as if to say, “so, wanna?” He always does.

It’s easier to fall into that routine than pay attention to what’s happening with the team. He’s in the press box for the home games, and watches it happen, but—a funk has been settling in on them for awhile now, and now they can’t win. Boone gets more and more frustrated by the day, prickly well beyond what Ryan was like when his hand was first broken. He slams down his gear bag when he’s home from roadtrips. Any driver that cuts him off gets cussed out and honked at with a vehemence Ryan hasn’t seen from Boone in a long while. He’s constantly tense, wired tight.

The night before the Philly-Toronto swing, Boone comes in like usual, and instead of letting him go after he’s gotten Ryan off, Ryan catches his wrist. He can barely get the words out, nerves surging, but he gets them out. This is—not going to be a just buddies thing, crosses well over that line, but he’s wanted to touch Boone for ages now, at least since this started if not before, and someone needs to get him to relax.

“Hey. Stay. I’ll help you out.”

“Your hand isn’t healed yet,” Boone says, and Ryan shakes his head. He’s not sure if he’s blushing as hard as he feels, but he makes himself keep talking.

“My mouth isn’t broken,” he says, and blood rushes hot in his ears that those words actually came out of his mouth.

“Have you ever done it before?” Boone settles back onto the bed, looking down at Ryan’s hand around his wrist.

“First time for everything,” Ryan says, mustering as much bravado as he can.

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

“Alright,” Boone says, soft and fond, and lifts his hips to slip out of his pajama pants. He’s not wearing boxers underneath, and he’s already hard, leaking a little. He looks at Ryan, speculative, before swinging his legs over the side of the bed and handing Ryan a pillow.

“Probably easier like this, right now.”

Ryan gets on his knees. It’s—a lot, looking up at Boone from this vantage point, but it’s easier for his nerves to not have to look Boone in the eye, too. He leans in, licks tentatively at the head of Boone’s cock, and Boone shudders, hands coming to rest on Ryan’s shoulders. Not holding him there or guiding, just reminding Ryan he’s there. Ryan closes his eyes and wraps his mouth around the head, letting himself get used to the weight of it, the taste, and his own blood pounds with it, with how new and illicit this all feels. He can’t help but try and take more, working up to it in little increments as he bobs his head, Boone’s fingers tightening on his shoulders, and even when he pushes too far and has to pull off for a moment to cough, getting right back to it is all he wants to do in the moment.

God, he actually really likes this. He didn’t know if he would like it at all, but he’s starting to get hard again just from the knowledge of what he’s doing, from the sounds Boone is making. One of Boone’s hands slides into his hair and tugs a little as he moves forward quicker than Boone was planning on, and _oh_ , that’s good too. The little noise that slips out of him is muffled, but Boone catches it, breathes out, “oh my god.”

Ryan doesn’t mean to swallow, but he gets distracted when Boone tugs at his hair again, this time on purpose, and misses that it’s a warning until it’s too late and he’s got a mouthful of come.

It’s… not actually that bad, either. He pulls off and licks his lips, getting the last of it, and Boone stares.

“Fuck,” Boone says, breathless. “You didn’t have to. Sorry about that.”

“It’s better than I was expecting,” Ryan says, getting up off the floor and settling back into bed beside Boone. “Guess the pineapple thing really is true.”

“Told you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ryan swats at Boone lazily with a hand. “Stay? Bed’s big enough for both of us.”

“Alright,” Boone says, and settles in, rolling onto his side to draw Ryan in and make him the little spoon. He’s warm and solid against Ryan’s back, comforting in his bulk.

Ryan’s drifting into sleep, but thinks he feels Boone press a kiss against the back of his neck before he drops off.

*

He’s not going to take credit per se, but when the losing streak snaps that weekend, he is awfully pleased with himself. Score one for BJs.

*

The cast finally comes off.

Ryan doesn’t get to travel with the team for the first two games, thrown immediately into exercises for re-strengthening his arm. It’s not painful. It is exhausting, though, and if he wasn’t watching the games in Pittsburgh on the TV in the workout room at Nationwide he’d be too tired to see them at all. He almost wishes he didn’t have to see them, though. It’s a mess. Nobody can score, Bob doesn’t look like himself, and no matter how many pucks get thrown at Fleury it doesn’t seem to matter. He tries to block it out and keep working on weights, but it starts worming in around the edges. He’s only going to be back if they make the second round. Maybe late first round. No matter how hard he’s working here—and he is, sweating and panting and pushing himself to the limit to try and rebuild weakened muscles—it’s not going to matter if the guys can’t hold on long enough.

Game 3 he sees from the press box. He kind of wishes he hadn’t. The good news of the day he got doesn’t seem like much of anything, after that.

The drive home with Boone is silent, and he’s holding it together, but Ryan doesn’t miss the white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. He doesn’t turn the music on. Doesn’t do anything but focus on the road and speed home as fast as he can.

Boone breaks as soon as they get in the door--drops his bag, yells, “FUCK,” and crumples to the floor, knees pulling up to his chest and face hidden. “Fuck,” he repeats again, quieter, but with just as much anguish, and Ryan sits down next to him and wraps his arms around his huddled form.

“We had it. We fucking had it,” Boone says, muffled by his knees. “We fucking had it and we blew it.”

“I know,” Ryan says, soft, and holds him tight as he shudders and curses. “I know.”

It passes, after awhile, and Ryan doesn’t let go. “Hey,” he says finally. “We’re not going to get swept.”

“We’re down 3-0.”

“I know. But we are not going to get swept,” Ryan says, fiercely, willing it to be so, trying to make the both of them believe. “They’re going to let me play game six. They think I’ll be ready then. So you go out there and get us there, okay? Two games. We won fifty this season. We can win two.”

Boone looks up, eyes red, and he has the faint hint of a smile. “Two games,” he repeats. “Yeah, maybe we can manage that.”

“Then I can score the game winner in game six,” Ryan teases, and that does get Boone to crack a smile.

“You mean you can assist on _me_ scoring it.”

“Sure, if you say so.”

Ryan gives him a hand up and a one-armed hug as they both trundle off to bed. “Hey,” he says, just to drive the point home. “Just win the next one. Get it rolling.”

*

And they do.

It’s the most stressful game Ryan’s ever watched from a press box, but they win. His hands hurt, by the end, from white-knuckling the edge of the box, and his chest hurts from how many times he forgot to breathe, but they did it. They fucking did it.

As soon as he sees Boone he grabs him and hugs the stuffing out of him.

“Told you you could do it,” he says, breathless, and Boone hugs him back just as tight.

“One more,” Boone says. “One more.”

“Hey,” Jonesy says, coming up next to Boone. “This hug just for roommates or can the rest of us get some too?” He’s pretty gross and sweaty, but then, Boone is too, so Ryan shrugs and hugs him next, then Bill, then Wenny, then Savy, and just for good measure, Bob and Nick both, because they give the best hugs of anyone on the team. They do have an awful lot of practice at it.

They all go out, after, all the guys without little babies at home, anyway, and Ryan buys a round of drinks while laughing his ass off at Saader’s attempts to dance while he’s being crushed by a Bill and Wenny sandwich, a three-way grind of clumsy boys. The whole world feels so bright tonight. He didn’t play, but just watching got his adrenaline up.

Boone tugs him onto the dance floor and he goes, letting himself be drawn in to grind back against Boone, slow and dirty. He turns his head enough to grin at Boone behind him, and Boone slips his thumbs into the waistband of Ryan’s pants and pulls him back a little harder. Ryan can’t help but think of the times when Boone would jerk him off while holding his hips in place, can’t help but call to mind moving only when Boone let him.

“Hey,” he says, low, feeling bold in the moment. “Come with me.”

It’s only the drinks and the rush of winning that make him brave enough; he tugs Boone along to the bathroom and into a stall, and then he drops to his knees.

“Holy shit,” Boone says, staring down at him.

“You had a good game,” Ryan says, and fumbles at the waistband of Boone’s pants until he can tug them down around his ankles. He’s got two hands to work with this time, and so he wraps a hand around the base of Boone’s cock with one and shoves the other down the front of his own pants. Loses himself in it, sucking Boone off quick and dirty while Boone groans and swears and pulls Ryan’s hair just as much as he likes, and he comes before Boone does, pulling off as he shudders through the pulses.

It’s probably an accident when Boone comes on his face—he’s pretty drunk too, but that just adds to the adrenaline thrill of the whole thing, and so Ryan just grins, wipes his face off, and then licks his palms clean.

Boone’s looking down at him like he’s the best thing he’s seen all day, better than a game winning goal, better than making the playoffs at all. He hauls Ryan to his feet and draws in close, and he’s leaning in, eyes closed, when they hear Jonesy’s voice.

“Hey, Murrs, you in here? C’mon, we’re doing more shots.”

It startles them back away from each other, but the heat in Boone’s eyes remains, even as he steps to the side to let Ryan out of the stall.

“Coming,” Ryan says, scrubbing a hand through his hair, and tries not to laugh at himself for saying it.

*

They don’t get a game six.

Ryan’s not in Pittsburgh when it ends, unable to convince the trainers to clear him early, and so he sees it in his apartment when the final horn goes. He turns off the TV and turns away, huddled in facing the back of the couch. So, that’s it, then. It’s over. He won’t be playing in the playoffs. Won’t be playing at all until September.

It’d be worse to be on the ice when the dagger came down, but this burns, too.

He’s asleep on the couch when Boone gets back, slamming the door behind him. He looks miserable, and moreso when he realizes Ryan’s in the living room and woke up to the noise.

“You saw?”

“Yeah. I saw.”

“Couldn’t get you that game six,” Boone says, and his voice wavers. “Fuck. The fucking—that _bullshit_ call on Wenny, and then it was just—“

Ryan gets up off the couch and hugs him tight again, knowing he’ll respond to that better than words. “Yeah,” he says softly.

Boone’s silent for a long moment, and then he says, barely above a whisper, “I wanted to win it with you.”

Ryan’s heart clenches. “Me too,” he says, holding him a little tighter.

“Fuck,” Boone says again, with feeling, and yeah. Fuck. That about sums up the whole thing.

Ryan’s not sure what comes over him in that moment, except that it feels like the right thing to do when he pulls back a little and then leans up to kiss Boone. Boone’s frozen for a split second and then kisses back, fingers winding into Ryan’s hair, and the kiss is slow and gentle, deep but comforting in its own right. By the time Ryan pulls back, his lips are red and swollen, and there’s a flush on the apples of Boone’s cheeks.

“Let’s go forget about this game,” Ryan says, leading him by the hand to his bedroom, and Boone goes.

*

“Hey,” Boone says, later, as they lay side by side in the dark. “Your hand’s not broken anymore, but—“ He stops, letting the rest linger unfinished, and Ryan gets the idea.

“You want to keep doing this too, huh,” Ryan says, turning to look at him. His eyes aren’t quite adjusted to the dark yet, and so he can only see the contours of Boone’s face, but he smiles anyway, hoping Boone will see it.

“Too?”

“Yeah. Too.”

“You wanna do it for real?” Boone asks, and he reaches down to interlace Ryan’s fingers with his own. Now they’re healed. Now he can.

“We make a good team,” Ryan says, and shifts so he can rest his head on Boone’s bare chest. “Let’s give it a try.”


End file.
